This course is an enriching examination of the varied elements that so often make this science the object of strong sentiments and heated debate.

Theirs was a three-decade-long bond that would help forge the United States. Vastly different men, Benjamin Franklin, an abolitionist freethinker from the urban north, and George Washington, a slavehold­ing general from the agrarian south, were the indispensable authors of American independence and the two key partners in the attempt to craft a more perfect union at the Constitutional Convention, held in Franklin's Philadelphia and presided over by Washington. Yet their teamwork has been

Historian Edward J. Larson recovers a crucially important--yet almost always overlooked--chapter of George Washington's life, revealing how Washington saved the United States by coming out of retirement to lead the Constitutional Convention and serve as our first president. After leading the Continental Army to victory in the Revolutionary War, Washington shocked the world: he retired. In December 1783, the most powerful man in the country stepped down as Commander in Chief and returned to priva

"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian comes a masterful, first-of-its-kind dual biography of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, illuminating their partnership's enduring importance. Theirs was a three-decade-long bond that, more than any other pairing, would forge the United States. Vastly different men, Benjamin Franklin--an abolitionist freethinker from the urban north--and George Washington--a slaveholdƯing general from the agrarian south--were the indispensable authors of American

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edward J. Larson delivers a masterful, overdue joint biography of our two most legendary Founding Fathers. Franklin and Washington, though divided by a twenty-six-year age gap and vastly different life experiences, underwent a similarly dramatic transformation from loyal British colonists to American nationalists, and found a shared purpose in their efforts to prepare the United States for independence. Though the two men are acknowledged as towering figures of t

"From a Pulitzer Prize winner, a powerful history that reveals how the twin strands of liberty and slavery were joined in the nation's founding. New attention from historians and journalists is raising pointed questions about the founding period: was the American revolution waged to preserve slavery, and was the Constitution a pact with slavery or a landmark in the antislavery movement? Leaders of the founding who called for American liberty are scrutinized for enslaving Black people themselves:

In 1787, the American union was in disarray. The incompatible demands of the separate states threatened its existence; some states were even in danger of turning into the kind of tyranny they had so recently deposed. A truly national government was needed, one that could raise money, regulate commerce, and defend the states against foreign threats-without becoming as overbearing as England. So thirty-six-year-old James Madison believed. That summer, the Virginian was instrumental in organizing t